Teenage boys are allergic to soap

The Boy seems to mostly live online through video games. Grand Theft Auto has given him a sense that he somehow knows how to drive and is permitted to give me advice. (Clearly he also enjoys living dangerously.) He also spends a great deal of time killing virtual zombies. He says it’s dirty work, but someone has to do it. I’ll come back to that.

Mostly he spends his time playing Minecraft, much to my persistent confusion. Grand Theft Auto and Zombie Island are fairly realistic. Even Far Cry and Halo are realistic if you ignore the fact he has so many guns and so much ammo that he’s clearly running through the battle zone pulling the virtual equivalent of his childhood little red wagon to carry it all in. (A detail I’d actually like the creators to just own up to and show because I’m dying to see.)

Minecraft is as far from realistic as you can get. Despite the uber-coolness of all these other games he plays with his friends, he spends most of his time in a world where the graphics are a throwback to my youth. Welcome back to the 16-bit world!

Enough of that. The Boy has some online friends that are real (as in I can watch them shake their heads in pity for him when I demand an answer as to just what is so exciting about a game with 80’s-era graphics) and he attended a birthday party this week for one of these young men. Now let’s return to the dirty job of Zombie Island.

Two words for young men who clearly have yet to discover the delights of young ladies and instead aspire to spend all summer inside battling virtual zombies: Please bathe.

Heavens boys! Just because you’re latch-key kids who cross paths with your parent(s) only briefly on alternating weekends doesn’t mean you can forgo basic hygiene. Getting a dozen thirteen to fourteen-year-olds together in an enclosed space was truly horrific. Worse, they didn’t notice.

Just because you’re battling virtual zombies doesn’t mean you need to smell like a real one. Or look like one. Laundry, boys, laundry! You’d think they were allergic to soap. I brought The Boy back and made him take another shower based on association alone. It was a lot like bathing a cat. Unfortunately, teenage boys are bigger. And whinier.

And back to the online nature of my son’s quality time with his friends. Before this week I was concerned, you might even say upset, about it. Not so much now.

Chipmunks, Mosquitoes, and Northern California

I promised a recap on suicidal chipmunks, so here we go.

I recall chipmunks fondly from camping in my childhood. They weren’t suicidal or adrenaline junkies then. Clearly something has changed. Specifically, something is going on in Northern California. My first tip was the mosquitoes.  Permit me to wander astray for a moment. I’ll come back to the chipmunks.

Mosquitoes aren’t complicated. They’re blood-sucking little monsters that I could deal with if they’d just not leave the itchy little calling-card behind. Want to suck my blood? Fine, just knock off the backwash. A real mosquito is a master. It flies in under the radar to land lightly on your skin. Stealth – the Air Force might have taken tips from these guys. (Granted there are novices that seem to want to neck or cuddle in your ear, but there are a few slow learners in every species. Maybe they were dropped as larvae. ) Once a real mosquito has landed, it gently inserts its delicate hypodermic proboscis into you - carefully, so you don’t feel a thing – and takes quick, silent sips. She knows not to overstay her welcome and makes a fast getaway before you get a chance to notice. (Again, I know there are some who can’t take a hint and need to be escorted off the premises, but they’re the minority.)

That’s how real mosquitoes work. I have no idea what’s going on in the redwoods. Those are not mosquitoes, they’re fun-sized vampires. Hear me out, I can prove it. First, “fun-size” has nothing to do with fun, it just means “small.” Ask any kid. Second, I just told you how a real mosquito operates; now let me tell you about the mosquitoes I met in Northern California.

The redwoods were impressive. There were a lot of really tall trees, ferns, and mosquitoes. I forgot to bring the insect repellant so I thought we were going to be an all-you-can-eat buffet on our little hike. No. As it turns out, these little critters don’t land lightly on your skin, they crash into you like a Kamikaze pilot. It’s difficult to overlook. They sit there for a moment, recovering from the botched landing no doubt, then set to work trying to drill for gold. Hypodermic? No, they use a broadsword, and they don’t insert it gently either.

The reason I label them as “vampires” is because they avoided the few spots of dim sun like they might give themselves away (Sparkly mosquitoes? That’d be cool.) Also, because we know mosquitoes operate by stealth and these suckers (Ha!) are anything but stealthy. It implies they’re pretty full of themselves. That whole vampire-top-of-the-food-chain concept fits the bill. Vampires are fast, these little things were fast. Vampires are strong, and it takes a lot of strength to hack at someone with a broadsword the size of a hair. Oddly enough, they also only attacked one at a time, even though there were more then enough to swarm, overpower at least one of us (let’s say The Boy, he’s the lightest) and bring him to the ground by sheer overwhelming numbers. Vampires are traditionally solitary hunters. Are you starting to see a pattern here?

Now let’s put the bizarre not-really-mosquitoes aside and get back to the deranged chipmunks. I can’t say they weren’t chipmunks, I didn’t get close enough to any to inspect them. They looked like chipmunks. They were the right size, shape, color, and they ran like chipmunks. Chipmunks are usually smart enough to avoid wide open places where things like predatory birds can see them easily. Roads are a good example. Also, there are cars on roads and they go faster than chipmunks. Shocker, I know.

So, I’m driving through Idaho, no chipmunks. Washington, no chipmunks. Maybe a squirrel or two trying to cross before they get flattened, but squirrels are like that. Oregon, no chipmunks. Cross over into Northern California and it’s like someone called open season on them. Excuse me? Suddenly chipmunks are playing chicken with cars? When did this happen?

The really bizarre thing is that Hubby didn’t have chipmunks dashing out in front of the car when he was driving, just me. By all means, let’s get the chick with the slower reflexes and pit her against a thrill-seeking/suicidal chipmunk! Hubby hated it. Every time one of those little (explicative) would dash across the road in front of me, I’d squeal and brake and/or swerve. And by the time hubby opened his eyes from his nap, the bratty little rodent was gone. No evidence that I wasn’t just trying to keep him from catching a quick snooze.

It was a hundred times worse when we left the coast and headed inland to Redding and then Reno. Hubby finally gave up any illusions he had about a peaceful drive with me behind the wheel and took over. Then no more chipmunks. Seriously, not one.

Chipmunks hate me.

It's About Time

Be Careful What You Wish For

When seventy-year-old Viv goes on a cruise to start over after her divorce, she finally meets the perfect man. A genie, a wish, and a false assumption on Viv's part lands her unexpectedly back in 1986. She's twenty, in college, and the man of her dreams doesn't remember her any more.

 

Even with fifty years experience behind her, Viv starts making the same mistakes she made before. She also learns a genie's wishes come with insidious fine print. 

That's my first book (sort of). The first one I'm publishing anyway (kind of). The first I'm publishing publicly (technically true). Okay, that's the first book I'm sending out into the world that anyone can read without being another writer, jumping through hoops, and getting one of a limited number of invites.  Whew! And I'm glad to be done with it and put that baby behind me. Now onto other things, right? Well . . . no.

I've been sitting on this book, mostly ready to launch for months now, and - waiting for what? To get back from the marathon vacation is a given, although I really wanted to get this done before I left. I have another book that I just got back from my editor, and another that is ready to go to my editor. One cover in the final stages and another that's just beginning the process.  You'd think I'd want to get this book launched to make things easier. And you'd be right!

Launching on Amazon was a given, it's the biggest market so it's a pretty logical place to start. For a lot of my fellow romance writers, that's where they stop too. Amazon can give you some nice incentive to be exclusive to them, but there's a downside. I'd give up all the people I want to reach with other eReaders. Amazon may not want you to know this, but some people have Nooks instead of Kindles. (Honestly, I have both, but my kids have Nooks. Of course my kids also have tablets and phones that can support the Kindle App, not to mention their laptops.) And there's the Sony Readers, Kobos, etc. Granted, even then I'd still reach some people because they have multiple devices like my kids, but I don't want to make it hard for readers to find my work.

There's where the delay and debate with Hubby came into it. In the end, I won (kind of). I launched on Amazon. The next one will be on Amazon too (AKA Lexi Frost - that's got more sex) and the one after (Chrysanthemum - implied sex again, but don't worry Lexi Frost has a sequel.) Somewhere around there I'll take away Amazon's exclusivity and launch those on B&N and wherever else I like the contracts. Then we'll see what happens when I release the fourth and fifth (I've been writing awhile). Where are the readers? It's like a long-term game of e-hide-n-seek.

Long Drives

I've missed a couple of blog posts because I've been on vacation. Whew! Glad that's done. It was fun. It was great seeing family, fantastic scenery, memories, yada yada. Tired. Vacations are meant to be relaxing, but I think we all know better. We could have flown, but where’s the fun in that? For us, a long drive is a family event. (Also, my kids are too old to ask "are we there yet?" without being grounded for insubordination so long drives aren't as trying as they used to be.)

The Boy is fond of his 'backseat driver' position in our minivan. He was only vocal about his vantage point when I was driving for some reason. Once I was in the driver’s seat and Hubby was safely asleep, my darling thirteen-year-old son (who’s never sat behind the wheel of a real car in his life) started giving me tips from Grand Theft Auto on how to navigate through traffic. It was nerve-wracking and I had to keep reminding myself we were on our way to Seattle where marijuana was recently legalized.

The Girl took up counting the highway fatality markers on this trip. You know, the white cross people put up where a friend or family member died in a car accident? Sometimes it’s not a cross, it’s something else. A little morbid as hobbies for a bored fifteen-year-old girl go, but I suppose they’re meant to be a memorial.

Some markers were actually very elaborate, some were nearly permanent. In Washington, there were “Don’t drink and drive” signs with “in memory of . . .” plaques below them. That was interesting. Then we started seeing ‘adopt a highway’ signs that were ‘in memory of . . .’  and weren’t sure if they counted as highway fatality markers or not. Nothing’s simple anymore. We decided not to count them simply because we kept missing them. Anyway, she counted sixty-five in six states/sixteen days/3300 miles.  

Hubby just drove and kept turning off the music when I turn it on until it was my turn to drive. Then he left the music alone and fell asleep, until I slowed down for any reason. As soon as I gently touched the brakes, Hubby would wake up like I hit a deer. Oddly, I could have probably hit a deer and not disturbed him as long as I didn’t hit the brakes. I had this strange twitching urge to test that theory, but it would have ruined both the front of the van and a perfectly good deer. I think the deer suspected I was considering this because they avoided us when I was driving. Smart move.

The chipmunks weren`t so smart. They were . . . another time.